


Flokati Fortnight

by recreational



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Banter, M/M, Romance, Slash, Smut, too much masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:58:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recreational/pseuds/recreational
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John interferes in the flat’s furnishings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> The story is betad by the wonderful CrackshotKate, who gets rid of the things that insult the native speakers' eyes and ears but who also lets me get away with some my ESL peculiarities :)

"What's _that_?"

Sherlock could do disgusted, John had to give him that.

He could do disgusted down to the point that John thought the frown and the flared nostrils would stay like that forever, because the world was so revolting as such and there was no other way to look at it after all.

In fact, the mere suggestion of possibility he was overreacting would make John the next cause for revulsion and thanks to nurse Clementine he'd already had enough of that in the hospital. He snorted. What a name.

"There's nothing remotely funny about that," Sherlock sneered, and John relaxed against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. He'd let the storm pass, hoping that he wouldn't shatter on the cliff that was Sherlock's aversion to anything new.

"This isthe last time I'm asking, after that I'm taking action against the contamination of this flat."

John snapped his eyes open. "Contamination? God, Sherlock, it's a bloody rug, not a deadly virus."

"Well, if it's _just_ a rug, could you please enlighten me on the necessity of its addition to our living room? Because to me it seems as though we already _have_ a rug, which is now lying under it, if I'm not mistaken."

"My sister gave it to me, okay? She had no use for it any more and I thought it might look nice …"

"Nice? We have no use for _nice_ in this household. _Functional_ yes, but nice?"

John rolled his eyes. "Sorry, but Harry didn't have an electron microscope to spare."

Reluctantly, Sherlock came nearer and wrinkled his nose. "The things she's done to it. Or on it. It's _used_ , John."

"Now stop that, will you?" John bristled. "That's my sister you're talking about! Besides … I had it washed," he added contritely.

Sherlock didn't seem satisfied with that information. He bent down and lifted a bit of the wool, moving it from one side to the other as if he was expecting a bunch of fleas hopping in his direction at any moment.

"And it's not a rug. The pile's much too loose and too long."

"It's woven, making flokatis is a great Greek tradition," John explained in full earnest. "I mean, maybe even Aristotle sat on one."

"Hippies sat on them, that's all," Sherlock grunted. "And the last time I looked we were not living in a commune."

"Do you know that at the moment you sound exactly like your brother? You just need an umbrella to poke it so you don't have to touch it anymore."

Sherlock flinched and quickly stood up. As if he was retreating from a suddenly furious cat, he stepped back and eyed the rug warily.

"It can't stay."

"Ah, come on, give it a chance. Look, it's of a good quality, so it has a lot of wool per square foot. Quite thick, not like the cheap stuff. See?"

John combed through the material with his fingers but Sherlock didn't come any nearer, and instead of the rug he now glared at John.

"Your feeble attempts at salesmanship just make it worse, I assure you. My decision is firm – I don't want it in the house. I hope that's clear by now."

Gritting his teeth, John put as much resolve on his face as he could muster.

"I know that this sometimes escapes you, but I'm living here too. And just like you, I've got the right to add furniture."

"That's not furniture," Sherlock scoffed but John shrugged and relaxed back into his chair.

"As opposed to you I've actually been to furniture stores, and they're selling rugs. So it stays." he said evenly and the slamming door told him that he had won the first round.

John sighed. Hopefully it was all worth it, because if he was honest with himself, he didn't like the flokati at all. After he had unfolded it that afternoon, it had looked so distinctly out of place that he was barely able to stand the sight. Sherlock was right, everything in the flat had a purpose. You could either explore the world's mysteries with it or make tea with it or at least sit on it.

In terms of decoration, they had effectively nothing. The wallpaper was the only thing with a pattern in the flat and it looked as if it had last been changed half a century ago. Then there was the skull of course, but it was less decoration and more of a third flatmate, as often as Sherlock talked to it.

The flokati on the other hand had no purpose _and_ it was decorative.

But when Harry had offered it to him, he had known immediately that Sherlock would hate it, and such was the vivid image of Sherlock's disgust that when he actually wore it, it didn't surprise John anymore. Undisputedly, Sherlock wouldn't accept it in the household, but the course of events after the first confrontation was completely unclear.

And that was why John thanked his sister so profusely when she helped him squash the rug in a big plastic bin bag. That relatively inconspicuous piece of handicraft would force Sherlock to step out of his routine and show something of himself besides the lazy flatmate and the genius sleuth.

They had been living together for a couple of months now and although John liked the alternating phases of his work at the hospital, the cases and their relatively quiet life at home, something was missing. He couldn't really point his finger at it but he was sure that it had something to do with the fact that he didn't have any idea of what was really going on in Sherlock's mind. Hell, sometimes he thought that it was easier to understand the skull on the mantelpiece than Sherlock himself.

There was a barrier that John simply couldn't tear down and if he tried, it would most likely lead to a conversation similar to the one at Angelo's. But he wasn't able to think of a different approach than the direct one, until Harry asked him about the flokati. And there inspiration struck him: if something was challenging Sherlock in the inner sanctum of his flat, maybe he would be forced to let John look behind that impenetrable mask.

And if it didn't work at least they had a new rug, because now, after he had fought for it so vigorously, he really had to keep it.


	2. Wednesday

The next morning, after a breakfast that had been quieter than usual, John went to work. Nurse Clementine and her devoted followers spent the entire day making his life as miserable as possible and after he had run to the laboratory for the umpteenth time, he came to the conclusion that they were conspiring against him after all.

Fortunately enough, his shift ended before they had the chance to chase him somewhere even more remote and he dragged himself home, feet and back aching. Entering the hallway, he briefly considered crawling upstairs and when he reached the flat's door, he leaned against it and nearly fell asleep. Fumbling with the key, he found the door unlocked and shuffled inside.

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table, crouched over his microscope and he didn't react to John's presence. Relieved and somewhat disappointed that everything seemed to be in order again, John took off his jacket and shoes and immediately aimed for his chair.

"God, I hate that woman," he groaned and felt the pain seeping out of his back. Pulling off his socks, he enjoyed the lack of constriction around his feet and wiggled his toes experimentally. The wool of the flokati was comfortably warm under his soles, the pile only marginally scratchy. His eyelids growing heavier by the minute, John let go of the tension and slowly drifted off.

"I can't work like this!" Sherlock shouted and John gave a start.

"What? …Like what?" he asked as Sherlock pushed back the microscope in a sudden fit of rage and jumped up.

"What's going on? Sherlock …?" John frantically searched for an escape route because Sherlock was leaving the kitchen and directly marching towards him on an apparent war path. But when he came to a sudden halt some feet away from the chair, John's adrenalin surge subsided and he met the furious gaze with a tired lift of the eyebrow.

"When we moved in here, we said no pets!"

Whatever John thought Sherlock was about to say, that wasn't it. Questioningly, he added the other eyebrow and tried to form a theory on the meaning of the outburst, but he came out empty handed.

"That is a pet!" Sherlock barked and pointed at the floor.

Now John understood why Sherlock had stopped where he was standing: he had demonstratively avoided stepping on the flokati and his finger was exposing it as the culprit of some hideous crime. John had never seen such loathing in his eyes.

"That's not a pet," he tried to soothe him. "It's just _made_ of material that came from an animal."

Going by the glare he now received, John was sure in that moment Sherlock actually considered killing him. To his great relief he seemed to be able to control that urge, though the clenched fists and the bared teeth looked quite intimidating regardless. Briefly John relived a face to face with an Afghan insurgent.

"Erm, yes, now what made you think that this is a pet? It's lying on the floor, unmoving, doesn't demand any food and it's not begging for walks," John quipped although his clammy fingers were digging into the armrest.

Sherlock took another moment to glower at him and then inhaled deeply.

"This … overgrown woollen jumper has already taken possession of the entire flat. I found its hair on my socks, on the cushions of the sofa and on my coat. My _coat_!" he exclaimed as if the vast proportion of that sacrilege needed to be affirmed by sheer volume.

John snickered but pinched his lips guiltily when Sherlock's face darkened again.

"And if that wasn't enough, I detected it on the specimen I was just observing through the microscope … it's everywhere, John, it creeps in every corner and settles on every surface," he added, his voice alternating between anger and defeat.

"Well, it's not likely to catch anyone's eye then, is it?" John tried to console him. "I mean, there's already quite a bit of dust around. I know you once said that dust is eloquent, but what you find on the shelf could probably recite each of Shakespeare's sonnets and half of his plays."

Instead of reaching their goal, the words just cemented the frown that had formed on Sherlock's forehead.

"All right, I admit that it's not as carefree as a Persian rug or an ordinary carpet, but you also have to see the positive aspects."

"You must be joking," Sherlock ground out. "What could be the perks of this pest?"

"Well, ah, today, for example, when I came home my feet felt like I'd walked a double marathon. In such a case the wool is pure bliss. Try it."

Sherlock took a step forwards and now stood on the flokati with his socked feet.

"And that's such a great revelation why exactly?"

John laughed and lifted his leg a little.

"Bare, you see?" he smirked. "Only then can you feel it. It's incredible, really. You can just linger and enjoy the warmth but what really makes the difference is when you're moving over it."

He drew a small circle with his foot and couldn't suppress a luxurious grin.

"When you touch it, it's smooth but it's also teasing the nerve endings a little. Just the tiniest tickling with the fine tips of the pile …"

Stroking the wool with the soles of his feet, he relaxed his head on the back of the chair and closed his eyes.

"Brilliant… it's so incredibly soft. But it's… reacting to you when you rub it and feel its texture. Mmmh…" he sighed.

John stopped. That had sounded… slightly odd. Cautiously he opened his eyes to find Sherlock staring at him. There was something searching about his gaze, so penetrating that John had to shake the impression of being cut up into a billion slices to be analysed under the microscope afterwards.

Involuntarily he started squirming in his seat, but the second he moved, Sherlock disappeared into his room, leaving just a fleeting impression of a slight trace of surprise John saw on his face before he turned around.


	3. Thursday

It was a day of absences.

Sherlock didn't show up at breakfast and fortunately nurse Clementine had her day off, but what could have been a quiet and peaceful time turned out to leave too much room for thought.

He simply couldn't place the look he had seen on Sherlock's face. In retrospect it couldn't have been surprise because that was something Sherlock Holmes felt as often as the need to go skinny dipping.

John frowned. That comparison didn't help in the slightest. Instead it added some images he could just about get rid of with a pile of patient files and a very strong coffee. Burning his tongue, he cursed his carelessness and blamed it on the tossing and turning that had kept him awake at night. Something was amiss, he just didn't have the faintest idea what it could be.

Then again, maybe he was just imagining things. And when he returned to Baker Street, he entered a dark and rather chilly flat that told him Sherlock hadn't come back yet. Taking the chance of making a sandwich without being asked to wash up object slides instead, making only _one_ cup of tea for a change and lighting the fireplace without being commented on, John looked forward to a quiet evening.

He went to his room to fetch the box full of photos Harry had given him together with the rug. There he'd try to find some of the fonder childhood memories and maybe they could cancel out the gigantic pile of crap that was the rest.

He sat down in the chair and started to sort through them. Birthdays, weddings, his sister and he in a park, in a garden, on the street. Quickly the different topics became impossible to arrange on the armrests, so John sat down on the rug to assemble the snapshots of his life.

Aunt Isabel. God, how much garlic did that woman eat? Uncle Alfred had never smelled like that. Maybe she had wanted to keep him at arm's length.

Beads of sweat trickled down John’s brow and he rubbed his eyes. It was becoming uncomfortably warm in front of the fire. He took off the jumper and unbuttoned his shirt but it felt just as warm. Stepping out of his trousers and getting rid of the shirt helped, though.

Pictures of the snowy Alps. They were of a skiing trip he'd been on together with some of his fellow students, but none of the pictures he had given to Harry showed the group. Sad really, Richard had also not been in one of the other photos, which had got lost long ago. John sighed. He couldn't believe how stupid he’d been back then. Stupid and incredibly embarrassed.

Burying the memory of a narrow bed and blue eyes deep down where he had decided to store them during the last twenty years, he couldn't help feeling a distinct warmth spreading through his body. Subconsciously, he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and was just about to take it off, when someone coughed.

John whipped around and saw Sherlock aiming for the kitchen.

"Evening, Sherlock. I thought you weren't at home," John tried to initiate a conversation but the non-committal retort and the fact that Sherlock switched on the light, sat down at the kitchen table and immediately started examining something through the microscope told him that it had been a completely futile attempt right from the start.

John turned his head and instantly one of the photos caught his eye.

"You know, that one was taken on my first day at school. It's good that I don't have to go to school these days. I mean, it was bad enough back then… My mother really made me wear short leather dungarees, can you believe that? The fat kid in dungarees. I was lucky my schoolmates mistook me for a Bavarian and even the teacher called me Johannes for the first two months."

Sherlock grunted and it might even have been laughter, but John was distracted by the fact that he was sat cross-legged and his hip started acting up. He grabbed another photo, straightened his legs and rolled over. Laying on his back, he held the picture over his head and looked at it in the light of the fire.

"That was a hoot," he laughed out loud. "I must have been ten. The year before, we had gone on one of those cheap trips to Majorca, but the sea and the beach had been great and that was pretty much everything I remembered. The next year we went to Ireland. We arrived in Caherdaniel and it was rather warm – for Ireland I mean – and we got out of the car to have a look at the beach. I just saw the turquoise water and the white sand and I was running down the beach straight away, dropping my clothes somewhere on the way. I jumped into the water – and it was ice-cold. I felt as if I was having a heart attack and all my mother did was take that picture of me while I was screaming bloody murder!"

There would be other photos of that holiday, John suspected and rolled over. It was a bit too hard to lay on his back anyway and so he settled on his side. Rummaging around in the box, he felt something unfamiliar and took out a piece of paper that someone had cut out of a newspaper.

"That's strange, I didn't know the press had been there. There must have been a reporter after all."

In the background of the photo, Sherlock and he were just leaving the crime scene, oblivious to what was going on around them. There was something about the way the camera had caught them that made it even more unreal that he had just shot a man, John thought. Maybe it was the way he gazed at Sherlock at that moment. It was so… trusting.

"Look at us," he smiled wistfully. "What an unlikely combination."

For the first time since Sherlock had sat down at the table, John looked up. But Sherlock wasn't working any more. He was staring. Yet unlike the day before, he didn't look away when John met his gaze and instead he cleared his throat.

"I obviously have to reconsider my assessment of our flat. We're a commune after all." He paused and seemed to wrack his brain for some other witty remark. "And you weren't even born in the sixties."

John looked down, suddenly feeling exceedingly self-conscious. For at least half an hour, he had been lazing on the flokati in boxers and T-shirt, sprawled like a cat in front of the fire. Just managing a strained laugh, he sat up and collected the photos.

"Well, sorry about that, it was… hot," he explained and winced at the flimsy excuse. Risking a glance at Sherlock, he still found him staring intently.

"Indeed," Sherlock said evenly and John hurriedly closed the box.

"I'll finish that some other time," he said and jumped up. After he had grabbed his clothes, he escaped to his room and only when he closed the door could he breathe again. He was definitely imagining things. Because it couldn't possibly be that Sherlock Holmes had just undressed him with his eyes.


	4. Friday

When John woke up, the faint morning light was filtering through the curtains – a clear indication to roll over and carry on dozing. Yet the moment he started moving he felt the reason why by no means he'd be able to continue sleeping.

Vague images of his dreams were lingering somewhere in the back of his mind but he couldn't identify anything or anyone in particular. Whatever it had been, though, it had left him with a disturbingly strong erection and the seams of his boxers were restricting it painfully.

Adjusting the cloth to give his penis more freedom, he briefly revelled in the unusual feeling. He hadn't been that hard in quite some time and it almost felt a bit alien – as if his cock had been attached to his body overnight. The slightest touch sent delightful electric shocks to his brain and they were just about to switch it off, when he heard Sherlock pottering about downstairs.

He froze. Wanking while Sherlock was running around in the flat and no locked bathroom door between them? That simply wouldn't do.

But the thought of the bathroom put his mind on a completely different track and he became aware of an even greater predicament than his hard-on. He really needed to pee.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he glanced down and considered his options. Even his dressing gown couldn't hide that amount of morning wood, so first he somehow had to get rid of it.

He closed his eyes and envisioned an ice pack on his crotch and when that didn't do the trick he mentally took a bath in a tub full of ice cubes. Nothing happened. Extending the mental image to a nudist holiday on the North Pole just resulted in some plans to go to the seaside in the following summer and so he gave up on that thread.

Kissing Aunt Isabel. Kissing Uncle Alfred. Kissing Mycroft.

The last thought triggered an unexpected spell of nausea and John briefly hoped that it had had the desired effect, but he was disappointed. Just the need to pee became a bit more pronounced, if that was even possible.

So he put on his dressing gown, adjusted everything so that it wouldn't cause too much suspicion, smoothed down the material and tiptoed to the bathroom. Going by the clattering, Sherlock was in the kitchen, and John quickly closed the bathroom door, locked it behind him and relaxed.

Now there was just one thing for him to do and unfortunately that would be the most complicated task of the whole endeavour.

After freeing his erection he considered standing, but he didn't have to be a sniper to know that the trajectory wouldn't be ideal. He sat down on the toilet and pressed down the hardness but when he reached the right angle, the cavernous body compressed the ureter, his medical mind deduced.

Gritting his teeth, he bent forwards and ended up hunched over the toilet in a position he last remembered assuming in his mid-twenties, but it worked at last and when the pressure of his bladder ceased, the erection also started to flag.

Relieved, he left the bathroom and when he entered the kitchen, Sherlock was standing on a chair, apparently measuring the height of the room.

"Good morning, John," he said, jumped from the chair and strode to the living room.

John sighed. Such hyperactive behaviour in the morning clearly heralded one of Sherlock's restless phases. There was no new case in sight and John fervently hoped that when he returned in the evening, the flat would still be inhabitable.

Sherlock didn't seem to realise that John was having breakfast in the same room with him and he just continued leafing through the books on their shelf. When John closed the door to go to work, he heard him cursing loudly but he forced himself to ignore the outburst because otherwise he wouldn't go at all.

The day in the hospital flew by with John's mind constantly wandering back to Baker Street, picturing what Sherlock might do to the flat. Giving his patients short shrift, he all but ran home.

Cautiously he opened the door, dreading the battlefield of Sherlock's misguided occupational therapy, but to his surprise he didn't stumble over any obstacles when he took two tentative steps forwards. Slowly, his eyes adapted to the half-light of the room.

John froze. Despite the lack of disarray, Sherlock was at home. He was sitting on the flokati, reclining against the armchair and only the low noises of the fire and the dance of the flames added some movement to the scene.

The rest was a painted still life and John was completely amazed by the picture of quiet domesticity. Sherlock in his pyjamas, reading a journal in the sheen of the fire – as if someone had made off with the Rembrandt from the National Gallery and placed it in the middle of their living room.

John blinked to snap out of it.

"Good evening, John," Sherlock said without looking up. John took off his coat and stepped out of his shoes.

"Now who’s tamed whom?" John asked. "Did you lunge at it and subject it to your will or did it lure you into its trap and you're just passing the time before it devours you?"

"I'm bored," Sherlock said to the journal. "Every distraction is welcome."

John gave a laugh. "But sitting on a rug? _The_ rug?"

Frowning, Sherlock looked up. "Do you have a better idea?"

"But aren't you afraid that it's going to taint you beyond imagination?" John asked, unable to suppress a grin.

"I took precaution," was the curt answer and John sat down on the flokati opposite Sherlock.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked and Sherlock lifted his leg to show him his bare foot.

"No socks. Plus I'm wearing satin pyjamas, so the fibres won't catch on them."

Sherlock seemed to be immensely satisfied with his course of action and John shook his head disbelievingly.

"A very sophisticated approach, really. Now what's your impression after the first clinical trial?"

"As you already correctly stated, it's warm," Sherlock explained. "And I also go along with your judgement on its function as a stimulus, but I'd rather call it scratchy and not ... tickling. But it could be worse and the only thing that's truly disconcerting is the fact that it attracts dust. You might want to vacuum it now and then."

John made a face. "Thanks so much for reminding me."

"You're welcome," Sherlock said and he didn't betray any reaction. Briefly debating whether Sherlock didn't want to see the irony or just didn't get it at all, John settled for conscious ignorance, because there was no way you could grow up with Mycroft Holmes and not understand sarcasm.

"So, to conclude I can say that momentarily I'm prepared to accept its presence."

"That's such a relief, really," John taunted him and relaxed his head on the seat. "And now what?"

"You mean that I'm supposed to entertain you?" John could practically _hear_ the raised eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. That was, of course, unthinkable. Straightening again, he went for the obvious.

"What are you reading?"

"An article about the decomposition of bodies in tropical climates."

Proudly, Sherlock showed him a particularly unappetising picture of a heap of something that might have been a human being one day and John wrinkled his nose.

"Well, that cancels out the option of having a picnic on the rug."

"A _picnic_." Sherlock scoffed and by the way he glowered at him, the idea was just as distasteful to him as the human remains had been to John.

"Tea?" John tried.

"That sounds acceptable," Sherlock said and continued reading the magazine. "We could have tea, yes."

"You mean that I could make tea."

"That's basically the same, isn't it?"

With some effort, John got up.

"A linguist might object," he said and went into the kitchen.

"A psychologistwouldn't," Sherlock answered and John grunted.

"But if a psychologist really dared to enter this household, we'd have 'The case of the early retirement' I think." He switched on the kettle. "Wouldn't put that on the blog, though."

Waiting for the tea, John's eyes strayed to the living room. The kitchen lamp had destroyed the surreal atmosphere, replacing the subtle glow with cold light. A pity, really, John thought, and when tea was ready, he switched off the lamp again.

In contrast to what he had feared all day it became a quiet evening after all, with tea, Sherlock's remarks about his forensics journal and some stories from the hospital. And the fact that a characteristic warmth began to stir in him was just a product of the fire and didn't have anything to do with the unintentional touching of their legs on the rug, John decided.


	5. Saturday

Just like the evening had ended, the next morning started; uneventful, amicable but somehow different than their living together in the preceding months. John was sure that he could get used to that.

Sherlock experimented with a roast he put in the oven at thirty degrees and when John returned from the hospital in the late afternoon, he risked a peek at the outcome. The heat had reduced the meat to something rather dry and strangely coloured and John dreaded the moment it started to decompose in earnest. Bloated beyond its natural confines, it would surely make a desperate attempt at escaping the gratin dish Sherlock had placed it in.

"I want to test something I read about last night," Sherlock remarked and John gave a laugh.

"We could've eaten that, you know."

"We still can," Sherlock said confidently. "I just have to increase the heat at bit."

John scrunched up his nose. "No thanks. I'll be at my sister's anyway. She's got tickets to some kind of female folk band and I promised to go with her. I'll stay the night, it's more practical."

"Female folk?" Sherlock looked at him as if John had just made that up to test his reaction but John shrugged.

"The things you do for your family …"

He was sure that Sherlock's sour face meant that Mycroft was just paying an unannounced visit to the mind palace and so he hurriedly went upstairs and threw some things into his bag.

Reluctantly leaving Sherlock and the roast behind, he took the underground to his sister and was relieved to find her in a much better mood than the week before. John suspected that she'd met someone, but she'd tell him eventually.

"And? Have you had any cases? I didn't read anything in papers," she asked and offered him some biscuits.

"No, unfortunately we haven't," John managed to say through a mouthful of crumbs. "London's awfully quiet at the moment. Or Lestrade's just too fed up with Sherlock, I don't know."

Harry laughed. "Well, at least he can enjoy his time at home. Now that you've refurnished I mean. How did he like the rug? Or didn't you have the courage to unpack it?"

"Of course I did," John said tetchily. "It's lying in front of the fireplace."

"Wow, what a bold move." Harry smirked and placed a cup of tea in front of him. "And what did he say? I guess he wasn't chuffed to bits, was he?"

"Of course he wasn't," John answered and hoped that Harry would let the topic drop. It felt weird to talk about it – as if an episode involving a rug was something intimate one didn't normally share with other people. Something that just belonged to Sherlock and him.

"Tell me all about it!" Harry demanded eagerly. Of course she'd got the scent of a good story.

John tried to contain his irritation. "It's Sherlock, you know him. What's to tell?" he said more gruffly than he had intended to and Harry raised her hands in mock defeat.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Seems as if Sherlock's not the only one with domestic sensibilities."

Her mobile rang and John assumed that it was the prospective girlfriend he was going to hear more about that evening. From the apologetic face Harry made when she came back from the bedroom, he could infer that there had been a change of plans.

"Erm, John, well, that was Beatrice and, ah, she asked me if I was free tonight …" she started but John interrupted her.

"And you said yes."

"Kind of … You're not mad, are you?"

John got up and grabbed his bag. "Don't worry, sis. Sherlock's experimenting with decomposition, so there's always something to do and be it cleaning..."

On the underground, John tried to imagine what exactly had become of the roast. Sherlock wouldn't have placed it in the fridge – that was too easy. John rather expected it to suddenly appear somewhere else in the flat and before he went to sleep, he should definitely check his bed.

But maybe it would be like the day before. There'd be no mayhem for a change and they'd just talk and have tea while sitting on the rug.

John couldn't help being a bit embarrassed by that thought. They were grown men, for God's sake, he shouldn't get excited about the prospect of spending time on a flokati. But the subtle anticipation increased noticeably during the ride and it drove him down Baker Street at a brisk pace.

When he was turning the key, his mind repeated the scene of the day before and only the sound of classical music from inside the flat disturbed his visualisation. Quickly he entered the main room and his mind even lulled him into a false sense of security until he had closed the door.

Because it really could have been the same view that waited for him. Like the day before, the light of the fireplace was gently caressing the silhouettes of the room. Sitting on the floor, there was Sherlock in his pyjamas and he was leaning against the chair. And like the preceding evening, John was rooted to the spot.

But Sherlock wasn't reading. He was masturbating.

The jacket open, pyjama bottoms unbuttoned, he was slowly stroking his erection in unhurried movements that looked rather automatic, but John couldn't tear his eyes away let alone move an inch.

Trying to spur his body into action, he felt a slight panic rising. He had to leave immediately, if he didn’t, everything else would lead to a complete disaster. But he felt absolutely petrified, as if his synapses had suddenly developed a life of their own.

Eyes glued on the regular rising of his chest, its pale skin almost glowing in the light of the fire, he wondered why it betrayed so little agitation. It was hypnotising but also strangely calming how Sherlock massaged his penis, as if he was rather listening to the music than paying attention to what he was doing.

Glad that his mind handed back the command over his limbs, John was taking a tentative step forward when suddenly something in Sherlock's demeanour changed. Pushing his head against the armrest, he gasped for air and before John's sluggish brain was able to recognise the telling signs, it was already too late.

The second Sherlock orgasmed, John knew that he wouldn't have missed it for the world. Seeing the spark of pure bliss lighting up and then dying down again, he lingered on the peaceful expression on his face for just a fraction too long and immediately got caught up by an unrelenting gaze.

He'd known all along that John had been there – the quizzical eyes left no doubt about that. And if nothing else had, that realisation activated every flight instinct in John at last. Hoping that the weak light would mask the massive blush he could feel on his cheeks, he attempted a frown but failed.

"I'm not going to have it washed again." That was all he managed to say before he stormed past Sherlock and took two steps at a time to his room.


	6. Sunday

That morning John knew exactly why he had slept like shit. But he couldn't go on avoiding Sherlock forever, although till then forever had only meant the preceding night and the first two hours after he had woken up.

But the hunger directed his feet downstairs and before he could spare a thought on Sherlock's possible whereabouts, he was confronted with a lump of something that hung from the kitchen ceiling. Nearer inspection confirmed that it was the roast and thankfully Sherlock had placed it over the sink.

Although it was autumn, it had already attracted a fly that was happily crawling on it and John wondered when its extended family would show up.

"Ah, good, I hoped that there would still be some flying insects around," Sherlock's voice suddenly rang out from behind. John turned around and glowered at him.

"Do you remember that this is a kitchen? Sometimes I..." Bloody hell, of course he was wearing _the_ pyjamas. Why couldn't that man dress for once? John already felt the blush creeping up his face when he had the presence of mind to clear his throat and look away.

"It can't stay."

"Why not?" Sherlock sounded sincerely offended. "Do I have to remind you that I've been remarkably patient with your new-found affinity for interior decoration?"

John turned around. "That's not interior decoration!"

"I didn't say it was. This is something useful."

"No, in contrast to what you think of the rug, _this_ is a health hazard."

God, the rug. Feeling the tell-tale warmth again, John turned towards the sink and clenched his teeth. What was he? A schoolgirl?

"The moment I see more flies on it than the one that's already there, it's history," he ground out and stomped to the fridge. A glass of milk had to be enough for now and in the afternoon he'd order takeaway. There was no way he'd prepare anything in the kitchen with that thing rotting away in it.

With every sip his anger faded a bit more and it was a relief to hear Sherlock starting the shower because then he'd be alone with the incredible embarrassment of the previous night that was creeping up his spine.

He had to say something, right? But what? Should he apologise? Sorry, Sherlock, didn't know you were having a hand shandy. Put a tie on the doorknob next time, all right?

That wouldn't go over well, John assumed, but if he was honest, he didn't know what to do or think about anything sex-related concerning his flatmate. Sherlock seemed to be completely unperturbed by the whole incident though, and if that approach suited him, it was worth a try.

Unfortunately that course of action didn't go along at all with John's mindset and as the afternoon wore on, he couldn't shake the impression of being confined to a very small room with horrible wallpaper.

Only when Sherlock was in his bedroom did John leave his hiding place behind the newspaper. Although the main reason for his confusion wasn't present, _the_ _rug_ was still there.

Each time he glanced at it – and it seemed as if his eyes were somehow magnetically drawn in its direction – his mind provided an array of images that became even more vivid with time, John noted to his bewilderment.

And in the end, just two possibilities remained: it was either him or the rug.

Getting rid of it for no reason would be too obvious and a stain could be washed out, so John decided to call Harry and persuade her to take it back. He didn't even have to tell her a lie because Sherlock really hadn't liked the rug and going by her remarks, she regarded her brother as something like Sherlock's puppet anyway.

Now he just had to wait until Sherlock left the flat, which happened sooner than he expected. Around six Sherlock put on his coat and left in a hurry. John waited for a couple of minutes and had just picked up one of the rug's corners to start folding it, when the door was opened again.

As Sherlock was almost continually wearing his I-knew-it face, it was a bit hard to discern the subtle undertone of 'busted!' that now went along with it, but the months of their living together had made John sensitive to such details.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked without ceremony and John let the flokati drop.

"Harry wants it back," he answered as casually as he could, but he was sure that Sherlock heard the slight tremor in his voice. Nervously, he cast down his eyes.

"Really?"

Even without looking at Sherlock, he knew that there was an amused grin on his face.

John slouched his shoulders. "Not really, no."

"Then why do you want to get rid of it?" Sherlock asked and from the slight swish John deduced that he was taking off his coat.

"I don't want to get rid of the rug. I want to get rid of …"

"What?"

John breathed in deeply. "I want to get rid of the scene, okay?"

"What scene?" As Sherlock's voice carried genuine interest, John looked up and didn't find the mask of lofty arrogance in place but something that looked remarkably like – worry. Somehow that made the whole situation even worse.

"I mean, I didn't even know that you were remotely interested in something like that..." John tried to explain but Sherlock still showed outright puzzlement.

"The… you know, when I came in and you…"

"Ahh, you mean when I was masturbating on the rug," Sherlock exclaimed, clearly pleased, and John winced.

"Yes, that."

"Is that a problem?" Sherlock asked as casually as if he wanted John to agree to Pizza instead of Chinese.

"No, no, I just…" John squirmed and searched for the right words. "Maybe it was just an unusual sight and I hadn't thought of you in that… context before."

"Why not?"

John raised an eyebrow. "Angelo's, ...not your _area_?"

"What did you think I meant?" Inquisitive eyes showed that Sherlock was on to a case and John knew that he should give up without a fight because Sherlock was like a bloodhound when it came to mysteries.

"Erm, that you weren't interested in… relationships."

Pleased by the correct deduction, Sherlock grinned. "Well, then you understood it after all. But that doesn't have anything to do with the satisfaction of my elementary needs."

"Oh…" was all that John could manage, trying to process the concept of _elementary_ in association with Sherlock, but the look that was addressed to him demanded further elaboration. "Now I get it."

"What about the rug? Do you still want to give it back?

"Actually, yes."

"Why?"

John shuffled his feet. "As I said, I can't get the image out of my mind," he mumbled and without glancing at Sherlock, he went into the kitchen. He needed more milk.

"I don't think that this will be a problem," Sherlock shouted from the living room. "In fact, I've got a brilliant idea to remedy that situation."

John glared at the open fridge and tried to focus his anger on the milk carton. There was no reason to ask. Any second Sherlock would come forth with one of his genius solutions. There would be a lengthy presentation of his reasoning leading to an irrefutable conclusion, and all that was expected of him was to agree tacitly anyway.

But as the minutes passed and John downed his glass of milk while studying the bleak view from the kitchen window, there was still silence.

Setting down the glass, he turned around and took two steps.

This time it wasn't the surprise that made him stand rooted to the ground. Just as the act as such wasn't shocking any more because now he knew what would ensue.

But it was exactly that knowledge that paralysed him. He immediately recognised the signs and it suddenly was imperative that he didn't take his eyes off the scene. That he didn't turn away when the breathing accelerated and the subtle glow of pleasure took hold of Sherlock's features. That he marvelled at something so astonishingly un-Sherlock that even the quick movement of the hand couldn't hide it.

Sherlock looked peaceful. The moment his breath caught in his throat and he freed himself from pent-up frustration and the shortcomings of the world, he also let go of the sneer and the frown. And John had the impression that for the first time he saw him for what he was – just a man.

"That should effectively overlap the memory," Sherlock said to himself, slightly breathless. Still pumping his cock slowly, he looked up and held Johns gaze. "Or do you also want to throw out the sofa?"

"I … no." Hadn't there been another question? John was sure that he had felt less naked being observed while still in T-shirt and boxers. "That won't work, … you know, I …"

"Or is it the fact that you liked to watch?"

Leaving the room wordlessly after such a question was surely not the most mature way to act, but John was sure that this time he wouldn't have been able to hide the blush.

 


	7. Monday

When he woke up the following morning, John was even more convinced that naïve ignorance wouldn't solve his problem. Accepting the fact that he _had_ a problem, though, was already a gigantic step forwards.

Because what had started as teatime on the rug had somehow developed into… he didn't know exactly what, only that it saddled him with unpredictable erections he – as opposed to Sherlock – was not keen on sharing with the world.

John stood up and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Who was he kidding? Of course he knew what caused them. It didn't matter if you pointedly ignored the hardness in your trousers after seeing your flatmate wanking – it was still there. And a night of dreams with material taken from a Soho video shop provided him with more striking evidence.

Glaring at his crotch, he willed his erection down. It couldn't possibly go on like that. This strange limbo they were caught in would ruin their friendship. Was it even possible to go on sharing a flat after something like that had happened? That led to the most important question: what exactly had happened?

Feeling presentable enough, John put on his dressing gown and the slightly stuffy air on the staircase told him that Sherlock had lit the fireplace. That was a good sign, wasn't it? Domestic duties and Sherlock normally didn't go together though, so there could be something fishy about it after all. What was suspicious about a fireplace? Damn it, John, get a grip on it!

Although he got his worries under control when he reached the living room, he was nevertheless glad to find it empty. Such was the kitchen and even the roast was gone. Thankful for the lack of carcass dangling before his nose John made tea and when a look in the fridge also revealed no rotting flesh, he even dared to make a sandwich.

"Good morning, John."

Normal voice, almost cheerful. John risked a glance and found the usual combination of pyjamas, tea-stealing and mockingly raised eyebrows.

"Morning, Sherlock," he attempted to imitate his example and it sounded surprisingly believable. Maybe his fears were unfounded and admitting that he had a problem didn't necessarily mean that he had to deal with it.

"Anything in the papers?" John asked and sat down at the table.

"No, absolutely nothing." Sherlock answered and gave John the culture section. "But I'm sure that Lestrade’s going to call in the next twenty-four hours."

"Of course," John laughed. "Like the last time when you were absolutely sure about that and you ended up staring at your phone for twelve hours straight. I hate to remind you, but you're not psychic."

Sherlock fixed him with his gaze. "Are you sure?"

"Well, first of all, I wouldn't have to ask you to buy milk because you'd already know to." John smirked.

"That's preposterous! As if I’d use my gift for such mundane tasks."

John rolled his eyes but Sherlock continued regardless.

"You have to admit that I'm aware of a lot of things that other people would never see." He squinted his eyes. "You, for example, always pretend to prefer plain English food and you say it's because you didn't get enough of it during your allegedly miserable childhood. But how do you explain your secret craving for caviar?"

"I don't crave caviar," John objected, his voice half an octave too high. How did Sherlock know that? He hadn't even told Harry.

"You're not psychic." It sounded a lot like an attempt at self-affirmation.

"Then you're wearing boxers although it's obvious that you prefer briefs," Sherlock declared offhandedly. "I really don't understand why you're giving fashion priority over comfort."

John just stared. Had Sherlock really deduced his underwear?

"And although you act as if nothing has happened, you were clearly aroused while I was pleasuring myself."

Sherlock looked at him as if he could rifle through the convolutions of his brain, but John reckoned that you didn't have to be psychic to read the embarrassment that was surely written all over his face.

"Well, I think we can come to an understanding," Sherlock said and stood up. "Shall I close the curtains?"

Not waiting for John's answer, he just marched to the windows and shut out the weak sunlight. Pleased with the effect, he plunked down on the sofa and shot John a quizzical look.

"What do you mean by understanding?" John asked, bewildered.

"Mmh, I don't think it's the sofa," Sherlock murmured and got up again.

"We can't come to an understanding about the sofa?"

Sitting down in front of the fireplace, Sherlock's mood improved visibly.

"It was the rug, of course. How could that escape me?"

"Escape what?" John felt a slight panic rising but Sherlock just shrugged.

"You can watch, if you like."

"I can do what?" John shouted and wished for just the slightest hint of bashfulness on Sherlock's part, but instead he started to unbutton his pyjama top.

"Nothing speaks against it, if it arouses you."

"But… but… I thought… not your area," John stuttered. Obviously his brain had decided to discontinue its cooperation with his mouth.

"Back then I alluded to relationships," Sherlock said. "Everything else went unspecified. I mean, you didn't ask me if I felt inclined to masturbate in front of other people."

Writhing in his chair, John tried to think of something, _anything,_ apart from his standard answer to all of Sherlock's genius deductions.

"You're right about that, I guess." Okay, standard it was.

"Of course I am. So let's call it a test run and find out about the most adequate procedures."

Obviously, the fact that John was too dumbfounded to say anything meant that he consented and nimble fingers made short work of the remaining buttons.

He wouldn't, would he?

 _'Of course he would!'_ was his brain's last rational thought. Then John's eyes short-circuited all information to his crotch and he only became aware of his hurting fingers when they received a different order than painfully digging into the chair's seat.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to keep his hand from opening his dressing gown and reaching under his waistband. It didn't want to obey him, and so if he accidentally touched himself, then it was only to adjust his erection and to stop it from straining against his boxers, John justified his lapse.

He closed his eyes. Maybe shutting out reality would make the urge to stroke himself go away, but the image of Sherlock sitting on the rug in front of the fire, leisurely pumping his cock, had been tattooed in his imagination and his mind's eye got an identical screening of the unbearably hot scene.

So it would be the same if he opened his eyes again, John thought, but when he did, he immediately regretted the move. Involuntarily, his hand started mirroring Sherlock's motions and already the first stroke was so deliciously arousing that it elicited a quiet moan from John.

And as if he had only been waiting for that signal, Sherlock surrendered to his climax, eyes wide in surprise. Almost forgetting about his own movements, John sat there, mesmerised, until Sherlock found himself again and breathed in deeply.

Yanking his hands out of his boxers, John hurriedly closed his dressing gown.

"I think I should give the procedure some deliberation. Apart from that, the preparation was insufficient. Inexcusable, really," Sherlock told himself and then turned towards John.

"Could you hand me some tissues, please?"

"What...?"

Sherlock waved a semen-coated hand. "You issued a stern warning about a possible mess on the rug, so I'm trying to avoid such a case. Now do me a favour and assist me in the matter."

Someone was pulling his strings when he took the tissue box and gave it to Sherlock, who immediately started cleaning his hands and his belly of all evidence. That same someone also manoeuvred him to the bathroom and into the shower, overriding his brain, because otherwise it couldn't be explained that as soon as the water started running, John gripped his cock and brought himself off in mere seconds.

"Shit!" he cursed, banging his forehead against the tiles. Now he had to move to the hospital for good.


	8. Second Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story's now betad by the amazing CrackshotKate and, marvel that she is, she also checked the preceding chapters! Thank you so much :)

He didn't move into the hospital, but after a double shift it felt as if he had become a permanent resident regardless. Very early in the morning he went home, too tired to think about the situation there – or better: too tired to think about anything.

Barely managing to get off his shoes, he fell into bed and slept like a dog until the ringing of his mobile dragged him out of his dreams.

"Hello…?" he croaked.

"Good morning, John, Lestrade has a case, please hurry. I'm waiting." Then the line was dead and John blinked as his eyes accommodated to the light. The phone said that it was half past twelve and rather automatically, John heaved his legs out of bed and changed his clothes.

Still half asleep, he stumbled downstairs where Sherlock was already waiting for him.

"Tea?" he asked, handing John the cup he had been holding in his hands.

John sipped and found it perfectly tempered. Downing it quickly, he put on his shoes and jacket and jogged downstairs to keep Sherlock from escaping him. To his astonishment, Sherlock was waiting in front of the house and he didn't even move when a taxi passed them by.

"What are we doing out here?" John asked. Sherlock knitted his brows.

"Don't you want to buy a sandwich from the café?" he asked. "You must be hungry after your shifts."

John hesitated a little and tried to make sense of what was happening but his stomach rumbled, convincing him of direct action.

"Where are we going?" John asked after clambering into the taxi Sherlock had hailed in the meantime.

"Not very far. Lestrade just mentioned a burglary-turned-murder, but he was convinced that there wasn't any foul play apart from that. So there most likely is," he smirked and relaxed in the seat.

His exceptionally good mood didn't decline when they arrived at the victim's flat and Sherlock's cheery face immediately sent Sally Donovan running, panic in her eyes.

"What's wrong with him?" Lestrade asked and watched Sherlock suspiciously.

John shuffled his feet and cast down his eyes. "Nothing, nothing… he's just had more time for… his hobbies."

"Hobbies?" John could feel Lestrade's eyes boring into him.

"Yes, like…" masturbating, he had nearly said but he bit his tongue. If he was a criminal, he wouldn't be able to withhold anything from Lestrade.

"…reading," he finished lamely and looked up. Lestrade frowned at him as if he had said masturbating after all, and John wracked his brain for something a bit more convincing.

"Or experimenting. Decomposition mostly," he added quickly and Lestrade's face lit up. But before John could share the episode with the rotting roast, Sherlock ended his leisurely stroll through the flat and smiled at Lestrade, whose face immediately darkened again.

"What?" the DI barked and John had to bite back a grin. A friendly Sherlock was obviously creepier than the sociopath.

But Sherlock appeared to be completely ignorant to the amount of irritation he caused and started lecturing Lestrade.

"He was impeccably dressed inside his flat, so it's most likely that he was going to work. There are no traces of a break-in and therefore he knew his murderer. And yes, it was murder and the burglary was faked as the things that were stolen show no planned search for valuables. Furthermore, the murderer was a close acquaintance as he knew the combination for the lock on the victim's briefcase."

"But the briefcase wasn't stolen," Lestrade remarked.

"Of course it wasn't. That would've been too obvious. He was after something in that briefcase, though, but the victim always locked it: the shining brass and the lack of paint on the numbers show that. I'd say it was a business partner. John?"

Sherlock was already on his way out and John shot Lestrade an apologetic look before he sped after him. The DI seemed rather relieved in face of Sherlock's standard behaviour.

In the taxi on their way back, Sherlock was still grinning that un-sneering grin John had some problem getting used to. It wasn't so much that he didn't know it, rather the stretch of time Sherlock had been wearing it was highly unusual.

"You were in pretty good form today," John said. "Barely fifteen minutes to solve the case."

"Good form? That was rather average, don't you think? But I couldn't help noticing that you were more than a little… distracted. I could help you, though."

"With what?"

"With your orgasm."

Forgetting to breathe and choking at the same time, John coughed violently and tried to fill his lungs with much needed air.

"What?"

Sherlock shrugged. "You weren't able to finish yesterday morning and I could assist you with that, if you wish."

Gasping for breath, John tried to calm down but it took at least a minute until he found his voice again.

"I suppose that was also something I should’ve asked about when we were at Angelo's."

"We hadn't known each other for that long," Sherlock reasoned. "And going by the amount of stuttering during the conversation, I didn't expect you to ask me for a blowjob."

After another round of coughing, John was relieved to see that they'd turned into Baker Street.

"No… well," he paused and shook his head, "no, absolutely no. But thank you, I appreciate… your sympathy."

Sherlock shrugged again and prepared to get out of the car. "Just an offer. Now open the door, we've arrived."

On their way to the flat, Sherlock explained a test setup he needed some reagents for and John tried to gather his wits. There was no need to worry, he told himself, Sherlock was his usual self – apart from the sex offer – and in the flat the living proof came in form of an hour of rummaging around which was interrupted by brief spells of violin playing.

During that time, John lit the fire, made a sandwich, stood around in the kitchen, debated with himself if he should sit down in his usual chair and in the end relented. Trying to catch up on the sleep he had missed at night, he closed his eyes and dozed a little, sporadically waking up by some scratching on the violin, until someone cleared his throat repeatedly, demanding his attention.

"Would you like some tea?" Sherlock asked and cautiously extended his hand with the mug. John accepted it instinctively, but the tea was extremely hot and the mug was filled to the brim. He tried to set it down on the little table next to the chair but it seemed to have disappeared overnight.

"Ah, thanks, … erm." Balancing the tea, he shot Sherlock a critical look but the detective just sat down in the seat opposite John.

"Maybe you need more visual stimulus."

John heard the mug sloshing, but his focus was elsewhere.

"Huh?" Maybe the conversation wasn't aimed at the topic he fervently hoped to avoid, so he opted for non-committal. The fact that Sherlock started to unbutton his shirt didn't bode too well, though.

"You react to visual stimulation, so maybe it just wasn't enough."

"Listen, if…" John started and then stopped. Whatever condition he hoped to formulate, it didn't want to be connected with the fitting syntax when Sherlock opened the fly of his jeans and freed his half-hard penis.

Gritting his teeth and cursing the tea that had already spilled slightly, John watched Sherlock get up, undress completely and lie down on the flokati.

"You can tell me what you prefer or I can just try out some poses," he said and supported himself on his elbows. "Your choice."

 _It doesn't matter!_ John wanted to scream, because naked Sherlock on the rug, cock in hand and just two feet away, was already too much. A bit of playful wiggling or the slightly flushed skin of his chest didn't help either, because then all his fingers were itching to do was _touch_.

John briefly thought about dropping the tea in his own lap or throwing it into the fire when his attention was called to Sherlock again, who had got up and was now kneeling in front of him, effectively preventing any escape.

The time for protest was flying by when Sherlock's fingers made short work of John's trousers' buttons and the boxers' waistband, but the moment he commented Sherlock's hand on his cock with a sharp intake of breath, that time was officially over.

"The offer still stands," Sherlock smirked and took the cup. John supposed that his erection saluted a noticeable yes but the next message that reached his brain was an emergency signal.

Because nothing could have prepared him for the incredible feeling of Sherlock's lips on his glans, the gentle rubbing of the tongue or the unbearable suction that followed. This would all be over very quickly, John reckoned, because Sherlock definitely knew what he was doing.

"Please… slower," he gasped, but that only seemed to spur Sherlock on. He tightened the grip of his hand and sucked a bit harder, reducing John to a quivering mess.

"I'll… I…" he warned him and grabbed a handful of Sherlock's curls, pulling lightly. It should have been impossible to feel a grin around his cock but when he looked down, John saw that he hadn't been mistaken.

The moment his eyes locked with laughing blue ones, the last modicum of reason bowed out and John threw all caution to the wind. Unrelentingly, Sherlock demanded everything, the twitching of the hips, the uncontrolled strokes and he swallowed the load John shot without even blinking.

Only peripherally did John realise that Sherlock was already dressing whereas he still tried to overcome his exhaustion and reactivate his brain.

"I told you that it would work." Sherlock said with a grin like a Cheshire cat. Before John could come up with a fitting answer, Sherlock had slipped into his shoes, grabbed his coat and the door snapped shut.


	9. Second Wednesday

Sherlock hadn't returned during the evening, and the next morning all John saw of him was his coat. Taking advantage of his early arrival at the hospital, he caught up with his paperwork but after only a couple of patient files, his thoughts began to stray.

If touching himself while watching Sherlock beating off had been a breach of taboo, last night had steam-rolled each and every boundary that was left. What, until that point, had reminded him of the fooling around in early puberty definitely lost its innocence when he saw Sherlock swallowing his cock. And more.

Before he could inappropriately dwell on that image any longer, the phone rang and he was called down to A&E. Thankful for the busy day and the fact that nurse Clementine kept him occupied during his lunch break, it was only in the late afternoon that the unsought thoughts returned.

 _It can't go on like this_ , he thought to himself,he definitely had to talk to Sherlock. But how? Dreading the idea of leaving hospital yet simultaneously possessing a strange urge to get home, John was still debating with himself when a knock at the door disrupted his thoughts.

"Yes?"

Sherlock peeked through the crack of the door.

"Shall we leave?" he asked and then he was gone again. Hurriedly, John grabbed his jacket and locked the door behind him. Looking around, he saw the trail of Sherlock's coat disappear through the door at the end of the hallway, and if it hadn't been for the lift, John doubted he would have caught up so quickly.

"Where are we going?" he asked, slightly breathless. "Has Lestrade called?"

"What gave you that idea?"

"You… I mean, you're here and… why are you here?"

"I'm here to pick you up," Sherlock answered, entering the lift. "Now please get inside, the door's going to close."

Still slightly in shock, John staggered after him.

"But why?"

"I thought it would be a nice thing to do."

"Nice? You don't do nice," John blurted out, immediately feeling remorse.

"A helpful thing?"

"Your idea of helping is a bit over the top lately."

"You're right," Sherlock sighed. "But I'm still experimenting, so I would appreciate it if you gave me some margin for error."

"Experimenting?" John shouted. "On me?"

"No, on me, actually," Sherlock grumbled and marched out of the lift. John tried to keep up with him and inconspicuously he sneaked a peek at the consulting detective's profile. The impression he got had to be wrong, it was impossible that Sherlock Holmes was nervous, he was the one who _made_ people nervous.

"Taxi?" Had Sherlock really asked him for his opinion?

"What about a walk and the tube?" John suggested because after the lift, the prospect of more time in a confined space with Sherlock didn't seem like such a wise idea.

Unfortunately, the silence during their walk served as a constant reminder of his cowardice to address the elephant that had taken residence in their flat. Later in the tube, packed into a carriage that was crowded to overflowing, it didn't seem like the right moment to start a personal discussion.

Squeezed against Sherlock, John admitted that his choice of transportation had been far from brilliant, but if there was one thing that could convince him to have a word with Sherlock, it was the fact that even here, crammed in the middle of bored commuters, he could barely restrain his hands from grabbing more than Sherlock's coat when he lost his balance.

It wasn't until Sherlock sat in his chair by the fire, nose buried a journal, that John finally mustered up some sort of courage.

"Look, it's… because of yesterday." he began, and Sherlock looked up.

"Didn't you like it?" John wasn't sure, but he thought his voice sounded a bit apprehensive.

"Yes, of course I did!" he assured him. "Very much, actually..."

"Well, then… would you like another one?"

John blamed his libido for the ensuing silence as it seemed to have taken over his vocal chords, forcing them into idleness.

"No?" He had been right: it really _was_ apprehension. Something was going on, but John simply couldn't fathom what it was.

"That's not the question," he said with a sigh, but Sherlock wasn't satisfied with his answer.

"But it's a very easy question. A simple 'yes' or 'no'," he challenged him and John threw up his arms in defeat.

"Shit," he exclaimed, "Of course I would, but the question is, where that will lead us? Don't you see?"

Sherlock shrugged and reclined in his chair. "Recreational sex, I suppose."

"And that's also something I overlooked in the rental contract?" John scoffed, but Sherlock fixed him with his gaze.

"I could enlighten you in that respect, if you're interested. But it would be more comfortable if you sat down."

"You won't suddenly undress, will you?" John asked, slightly panicky, but Sherlock stopped him with a wave of his hand.

"I'm just going to talk, that's all. You don't even have to say anything. It would be very obliging of you to listen, though."

Deliberating for a moment, John came to the conclusion that this time his dignity was safe and he sunk back into his chair.

"Good, now that I have your undivided attention, I'm going to tell you everything I've ever done regarding sex," Sherlock announced. "So you know what you're getting yourself into. Would that be admissible?"

John was sure the blush he felt heating his face didn't count as an answer.

"Very… admissible." he managed to say.

"Good." Sherlock took some time to find the well-hidden doors in his mind palace. "During my final year at school, I seduced all of my so-called 'schoolmates' who showed homoerotic tendencies and half of those who didn't."

"Just to prove that you could, I presume?" John interrupted him, but Sherlock seemed to be immensely satisfied with the remark.

"Naturally. Then, when I started college I had to share a room with someone – let's call him the duplicitous bastard – who was also quite eager to share his arse. I don't think the sacrifice of living with me was all that great for him – Mycroft really wasted his money."

John frowned.

"And at uni I met one of those not-so-rare species among professors, mmh, let's call him the pompous ass, who loved to have his cock sucked while he was working at his desk," Sherlock sneered and there was a brief flash of the predatory smile that John hoped would never be directed at him. "That vain idiot really thought I was one of those dim-witted beaus who did everything for a good mark."

"That's rather unfortunate," was all John could think of in retort. Sherlock just shrugged.

"It didn't matter, I stole his debit card and cleared his account. Where was I? Ah yes, the married banker I wanted to pick-pocket on the tube. He reacted in a rather promising way towards me, and at the time I was high and homeless, so the prospect of a hotel room for the night was more than enough. I even got a blowjob before he acquainted me with the joys of anal sex. Stole his wallet, by the way."

John caught himself wishing that they weren't sitting so far apart. It was strange – feeling the urge to… embrace Sherlock.

"A little arrangement I had with a dealer was quickly ended by Mycroft, but not before I got my hands on all the cocaine he'd stashed. Brought me through the first month of rehab," Sherlock recounted and smiled a little wistfully, as if he was remembering the good old days.

"God Sherlock, that's horrible." John buried his nose in his hands and tried to concentrate on his breathing. "I mean, have you ever...?"

"Had good sex?" Sherlock finished. "Well, after I had managed to distance myself from the people I had it with and stopped having it for a purpose, yes, there were some mildly enjoyable experiences. The last one occurred about a year ago."

"Ayear? Why so long...?"

"Itcan't distract me from The Work any more. Too much hassle, but the last episode was not of great interest anyway, so I won't recite it."

"Why not?" John asked before he could stop himself.

Grinning, but not without showing a slight hint of canine, Sherlock penetrated him with his gaze.

"I'm convinced that you don't need my account to picture it – probably better than it actually was."

Casting down his eyes, John tried to avoid the piercing look but immediately regretted it, because the moment he saw the rug, his mind equipped it with Sherlock – naked, hard and waiting to be fucked.

The shame he felt afterwards helped him to bluff his way through the rest of the evening, yet the image refused to disappear. When he stood under the shower some hours later, pumping his cock within the threshold of pain, it re-emerged like a malicious, porny pop-up and kicked him over the edge.


	10. Second Thursday

For the first time in what felt like months, John woke without lingering memories of technicolour dreams. Beyond that, the erection he'd become familiar with fighting as an early morning exercise wasn't there, instead the guilt that had accompanied him since their talk the night before was dragging him down like lead.

Everything was going too far and until now he'd thought that inflicting such an affair on himself was an all-round terrible idea. After Sherlock's confession his opinion had changed considerably, yet presented no way out – a realisation that raised some new difficulties.

Primarily, Sherlock was wrong,  _terribly_  wrong in the way he approached sex. Yet, Sherlock was  _never_ wrong (or so he thought). Second of all, playing along would do nothing to solve the problem, as it only confirmed Sherlock's suspicions. Third, because of that only he, John Watson, was the one who could re-establish their friendship and lead the way back to the time when their life wasn’t taken from the script of a cheesy soap opera. Okay, a soap opera on the porn channel. 

Hopefully, all of that could wait until he'd had breakfast, so John listened carefully for Sherlock's steps. Quietly, he went downstairs, tiptoed through the empty living room and retrieved his favourite mug from the cupboard.

"I thought we were beyond that."

Startled, John's hands scrabbled to prevent the mug's untimely meeting with the hard floor.

"Morning, Sherlock," he acknowledged his flatmate's presence but refrained from accepting that he'd spoken, much less turning around. It was impossible to show Sherlock  _normal_ when his face most likely screamed ' _Mr Scaredy-Cat'_.

"You simply could've asked me."

John bit his tongue. He wouldn't cave in, not this time.

"Asked for what?" There had to be some kind of automatism in him, John chided himself. He ought to have that checked out.

"There's no need to masturbate in the shower," Sherlock said, genuinely offended, his voice too near for John's liking. "I've informed you of my previous experience in this field. You could've acted on what you were picturing so vividly towards completion."

John felt his shoulders tense. This wasn't happening, he told himself, it was possible to go back to where they had started.

"Honestly, it was so obvious."

John tried to force his hands to go on with what they were doing, namely filling the clear kettle with water, but they were either somewhat hindered by the wound up shoulder muscles or they had decided to join his upper body's strike.

"So…?" Sherlock drawled.

"I didn't picture anything."

"You did."

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I..." John heard a nondescript noise that sounded a lot like a laugh, but he suppressed his own snigger. Filling his lungs deeply, he turned the tap on instead.

"Be that as it may," said the voice behind his back after a pause. "I have to go. Lestrade needs me at the Yard."

Not until he heard the door close did John relax again. That had been a promising start, had it not? During the couple of hours he could now spend home alone, he had the chance to exercise a bit of normality.

He made a sandwich, sat down at the overcrowded table, drank his tea and ate. The moment he opened the newspaper, he knew that he was fooling himself. He never read the newspaper at the table, always sat in the armchair. If he wanted to achieve normality, he had to overcome his irrational fears.

Cautiously he approached the fireplace, but quickly realised that no amount of glaring would make it budge. Sitting down in the chair as though it might collapse any second or swallow him whole, he finally accepted that he'd conquered hostile territory with success and could now safely continue with an article about agricultural subsidies in The Daily Telegraph.

After a while, he felt his toes toying with the flokati and decided it couldn't hurt to rid himself of his socks and enjoy the rug with bare feet again. After all, it was only a rug, wasn't it?

Folding the newspaper and reclining in the chair, John indulged in the tickling on the soles of his feet, and wondered how it would feel against other parts of his body. Or against Sherlock's back when he was lying there, naked.

 _'And here we go again!'_ Gritting his teeth, John tried to counteract the resurfacing images with a documentary on pigeon breeding he had watched some weeks ago, to no avail.

Already feeling the tell-tale stirring in his groin, he briefly reassessed his situation: maybe he should just let those fantasies flow for a change, maybe he was trying too hard to suppress his desires, and making them something forbidden even spurred his libido on?

Before he could have second thoughts, he opened his fly and fumbled for his erection. Sherlock was right, he really should consider briefs. Pushing aside yet another awkward discussion, John focused on his plan and as if his mind had waited for that initial spark, it opened the floodgates.

A tentative stroke and the closing of his eyes immediately swept him away on an unstoppable tide of reality and imagination, pale skin and dark hair, sinewy limbs and invitingly curved lips, those lips…

If he could feel them again, readily admitting him, sucking, coating him with saliva, if he could just see his cock disappear into that incredibly hot mouth once more, the tongue stimulating every nerve ending, sensitising him until he felt like bursting...

And that body. If it was waiting for him like he'd pictured it, waiting to be touched and to be explored. Pliantly resigning itself to his fingers and tongue but begging to be taken.

He tried to hold back just a second longer but the image catapulted him forwards furiously, concentrating all his neural cells on the very tip of his penis.

"Sherlock." John whispered, the name tearing him apart and putting him together again in a kaleidoscope of bliss, his slick hand the only reminder that it should be over. But he needed more, no matter if his senses were already close to overload, just a little more...

"You called?" a voice asked, and John whipped around, breathless.

There he was, leaning against the door in his coat with that all-knowing grin firmly in place.

"I told you that it was obvious." Sherlock remarked with a shrug before he vanished again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again a million thanks and a big hug to CrackshotKate who reworks everything so wonderfully and at such breakneck speed :)


	11. Second Friday

Looking back, John was sure that the mantra his mind had kept repeating during his shift wasn't just a futile attempt at whitewashing what had just happened. _Everything was normal_. Having been caught out by Sherlock? A bit of poetic justice, that was all.

The whole episode was nothing but a lapse and when John woke up on the coarse cover of the staff room's sofa in the early morning, he immediately trained his thoughts on the plan he was going to carry out come what may: he'd re-establish what they had had in the preceding months because something like recreational sex maybe existed in Sherlock's world but it wasn't what normal people had.

At dawn he arrived back at Baker Street and succumbed to sleep again, later took a shower, lit the fire, made tea and laid the table in the living room – a proper morning routine of normal people who didn't have to fear their flatmate suddenly materialising behind them.

"Good morning."

John gave a start. What would he give for a day with someone else's flatmate.

"God, Sherlock, ex-soldier here, don't sneak up to me like that all the time! I could have my weapon on me." John said, continuing to stare at the table.

"I… wanted to tell you that I'm sorry." Sherlock said quietly and John was tempted to turn around. The voice sounded strange – as if something was missing from it.

"Not such a huge problem, you'd be the dead one, after all."

"What? No, I was apologising for yesterday."

John felt a sudden urge to grab on to the back of the chair and an unsettling feeling took hold of him, because if there was something distinctly out of the ordinary then it was Sherlock apologising.

"I… well, if – " John started.

"As it was obvious, there was no need to prove it," Sherlock interrupted him. "And watching you didn't provide an insight into the most important aspect anyway."

"Why? I mean, what aspect?"

Although Sherlock wasn't touching him, John felt the warmth radiating off him even before the voice whispered in his ear.

"What exactly you were picturing."

John clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. He wouldn't go there again.

"It's not important."

"Quite the contrary," Sherlock drawled. "It's of the utmost importance."

"Why?"

He felt just the slightest touch of lips when Sherlock took a short journey along the collar of his dressing gown. When he spoke, the puff of air tickled John's throat and involuntarily, he shivered.

"Because then I could see it too," Sherlock breathed.

"It's…"

"Please."

John inhaled deeply. Hearing Sherlock begging for something was so rare that it created an uncanny urge to comply.

"I can't," he tried to persuade himself, and Sherlock unerringly continued his path up John's throat until he had reached the ear again.

"What if we were to discover that it was exactly what I wanted you to do?"

Holding on to the chair, John tried to ignore the persistent stirring in his groin. He wouldn't play that game, and more importantly, he wouldn't use Sherlock like that.

Then again, Sherlock didn't have such qualms it seemed and before John knew it, Sherlock's arms reached around his body and with a flick of his hand, his dressing gown was untied. An insistent pull and the next moment he was warmed by Sherlock's naked chest – unfair but effective, John conceded.

"Sherlock." He ground out the name with more determination than he felt and turned around to make sure that what he was about to say didn't just address the table. "Can't you see – ?"

Of course he couldn't. The eyes John now met weren't searching or observing like they did otherwise. They were pleading, giving them a vulnerability that made John reach for the face to caress it. Just a caress… But with all of his willpower he held his hand back before it could touch the skin.

"Give me something,  _anything._ " Sherlock whispered.

Like before, the imploring voice cut right through each of John's defences, and he only just managed to redirect his hand with a near-unwavering desire to make immediate contact. Instead of his face, it now touched his chest, feeling the regular rising and answering it with just the slightest pressure. As if the body before him knew what John wanted even before he became aware of it, it complied with the touch, took some tentative steps backwards and sunk back on the rug when his hand pushed more insistently.

Following the movements automatically, John only woke up to what he was doing when he was already kneeling between Sherlock's legs. He paused and tried to gather his wits, trying to avoid being carried away. It didn't matter if Sherlock's compliance had aroused him more than he would have thought possible, he needed to stay in control.

He was a doctor after all, he could look at the expanse of pale skin from a clinical point of view, and the erection was nothing but genitalia. Touching it caused reactions in the nerve endings, nothing more and nothing less. If he didn't look at Sherlock, maybe it was possible to keep that distance.

What if he gave the glans an experimental lick to see if its taste was similar to the one he remembered from twenty years ago?

Sherlock moaned quietly and John tried to shut out the sound, purely concentrating on the oddly familiar yet entirely different taste. He engulfed the tip of the cock with his lips to explore its texture, would it match his memories? He sucked lightly.

Would Sherlock react to the same stimulation he himself preferred? A tongue encircling the rim of his glans and a gentle massage of his testicles? Cataloguing the taste of the pre-ejaculate and the hands that were clenching the pile of the rug, John came to the conclusion that there were definitely similarities.

" _Please_." It was both a plea and a warning, making John withdraw for fear he wouldn't be able to deal with what was to follow, just like the last time he had tried.

Pumping the penis slick with his saliva in quick movements was so hypnotising that only Sherlock's sudden gasps could make him tear his eyes away. Instead they were now drawn up by the sound of laboured breathing and guided by the trail of dark curls on his belly that became a barely visible dusting of scattered chest hair.

Just briefly he was distracted by the flexing pectorals that helped the hands ripping the pile, because then there was that irresistible mouth again, so contorted that only one word could pass its lips.

"John."

He felt Sherlock's release coating his fingers, but he couldn't look away from the rapture on his face. Just like the blissful smile, he had caused it this time.

Panting heavily, Sherlock relaxed on the rug and opened his eyes. Something in that look had a familiar ring, John thought, but before he could place it, his senses blanketed every rational notion because seeing Sherlock so dishevelled and sprawled out before him created an uncontrollable urge for more.

He needed to get more of Sherlock's taste, had to follow the trail of hair downwards again and couldn't help a little detour into the belly button. Traces of semen blended in the salty sheen of sweat on the belly and in the smell of damp pubic hair. Shrivelled testicles with their furrowed surface, the warm skin of the thighs, how they parted willingly when John explored further, so pliable, just as pliable as that body would be if he sunk into it…

Appalled, John stopped. Like an ice-cold shower, his last thought had drenched him in guilt and only with great self-control he could restrain himself from flinching. Instead, he sat on his heels and searched for the right words.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't…" he said, averting his eyes. It was impossible. There was nothing he could say that explained what was going on in his head. Even  _he_ didn't understand the jumbled mess of his thoughts and reluctantly he got up. Eyes still trained on the rug, John made a last attempt to extract a meaningful idea from his mind, but to no avail.

Silently, he turned around and walked away, feeling Sherlock's eyes on him. Closing the door, dressing, waiting, that was all that was left for him, and when the flat fell silent, he escaped it like a thief in the night.

"God, John, you look awful." Harry exclaimed when she opened the door, enveloping him in a bear hug.

"Lack of sleep, I guess," John grumbled and squeezed past her. "I need some tea."

Harry shot him a sceptical look, but led the way into the kitchen.

"You can't fool me, what's going on?" she asked and handed him the steaming mugs.

"Nothing, really." He sat down at the table and attempted a cheerful smile.

"Honestly, John," Harry said and frowned at him. "Long before Sherlock deduced it I knew that you were a terrible liar."

John clenched his teeth. That was bullshit. He was a great liar, because he had convinced himself that there would be a possibility to go back to where Sherlock and he had started when there never was. In fact, there was only one solution: he had to move out.

His medical mind refused to believe it, but John was sure that this was how it felt when a thought broke your heart. Going by the way Harry now looked at him it could even be seen from the outside.

"Is it Sherlock?" she asked. "I know that he's an arse, but till now I thought he had a decent bone or two in him …"

"No, no," John interjected. "It's not him, it's just… the hospital. You know, there's that nurse…"

And after lying through his teeth to his sister for the following few hours, John felt sufficiently prepared to return to Baker Street.


	12. Second Saturday

"Are you sure you want to go?" Harry asked and switched off the television. "It's gone 1am. I mean, you could sleep on the sofa."

"No thanks, that's okay." John dragged himself to his feet and rubbed his eyes. "I really don't feel like sofa surfing tonight. Did that last night and I can still feel a crick in my neck."

"Hey, my bed's big enough." Harry said, but John dismissed her with a laugh.

"Since Uncle Albert's birthday I've known that your snoring is responsible for the loss of English woodlands. Honestly, I don't know how your girlfriends can bear it."

With an evasive manoeuvre that spoke of decades of sibling rivalry John managed to avoid being hit in the face, but as Harry's wrath hadn't subsided yet, he quickly fled to the front door.

"You ungrateful git," Harry shouted, gradually regaining her cool. "Ah well, was just an offer." She shrugged.

Training his eyes on the floor, John put on his jacket.  _Just an offer._  Like a thick smog he couldn't escape from, everything from that sentence bouncing around in his head to the taxi he hailed immediately reminded him of Sherlock.

How long it would be like that after he had moved out, he wondered? Would he be able to take a cab one day without turning his head to frown at the empty seat beside him? Could he drink tea and read the newspaper without the hollow absence of his flatmate's comments on the articles? Every dark coat, every mop of curly hair, would they forever transport him back to their time together?

Swallowing against a lump in his throat, he tried to focus. There was no way around this step, however painful it might seem. He had to face the truth for once, because what they were doing was not healthy and it would destroy their friendship completely. And the thought of someone finding out...

John winced. He was definitely not looking forward to  _that_ talk with Mycroft.

'My dear doctor,' he would say, pitying him with a pointed look, 'sources that need not to be named inform me that my brother and yourself have been engaging in certain sexual activities lately. Is that so?' Mycroft would ignore John's shuffling and squirming, choosing instead to lecture him on the pros and, more numerously, the cons of sleeping with Sherlock. John just idly hoped that he wouldn't be offered money again.

The taxi stopped, waking John from his reverie. He paid the cabbie quickly, but the moment he faced the house, dread slowed his steps until he was barely able to advance. While turning the key he briefly considered going back to Harry's sofa after all, but maybe Sherlock wasn't at home.

Then again, if Sherlock was there, it could be an advantage not having to face him in the cold light of day, John thought as he climbed the stairs to their flat. Maybe everything would be easier like that.

When he entered the flat, he was surrounded by darkness – no lamp, the fireplace extinguished – but he instantly knew that Sherlock was there. Even before his eyes had adapted to the half-light of the room, they had strayed to Sherlock's usual places and stopped at the second possibility.

He was sitting huddled in his chair, arms around his knees and he didn't even look up when John closed the door a bit too loudly for that time of the night.

"You're up," John said and hoped for a classical retort, reprimanding him for stating the obvious. Instead, Sherlock remained frozen in his position and the eerie silence slowly began to strain John's nerves.

"You're not trying to break glass with the sound of your violin, and the kitchen hasn't exploded, that's… good, I suppose."

Still nothing. Frustrated, John took off his jacket and stepped out of his shoes. If Sherlock didn't want to talk, so be it. Maybe he would listen for a change. With every step John took in the direction of the fireplace, though, his anger faded more.

There was something disquieting about the way Sherlock stared at the floor. He seemed… forlorn, as if he had to clutch at his legs in order to avoid falling apart and when John stood before him, he could barely refrain from extending his hand to stroke his curls.

"What's wrong?" he asked, not expecting any answer again, but Sherlock drew in a quick breath and turned away his head.

"Nothing."

John sighed and braced himself. Some things needed to be fixed before he left and he'd better pull himself together.

"Look, if it's because of before, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have – " he started but he was cut short by Sherlock turning around to fix him with an angry glare.

"Why not?" he snarled. "Tell me!"

"I…"

But as suddenly as the rage had appeared, it vanished again. Dejectedly, Sherlock rested his head on his knees and his voice was so devoid of any emotion that John felt the chill of the words leave frosty traces on his skin.

"I knew it was wrong to involve other people in the act again. I should've continued to deal with it on my own."

"Oh God, no!" John half shouted and desperately fought against the urge to do something, start pacing or shake Sherlock. "Don't say that! It wasn't wrong, I mean, it was the first time I saw you…"

"What?"

"I saw you letting go with someone else," John said and sighed. "That was… amazing."

He would have loved to see Sherlock's eyes to read the look he was giving him now, but in the dim light they were just black disks in a pale face, boring through him for a second to be quickly directed at the floor again.

Exhausted, John sat down on the rug and leaned against the armchair. Twisting the pile with his fingers, he studied his feet – dark socks on the beige rug. But no matter how much he let himself be distracted by the wiggling of his toes, his mind was stuck.

Should he apologise again? Bid him goodnight and go? Stay for a while and hope that he'd say something?

A rustling told him that Sherlock was moving at last. Preparing to stand up, John pushed himself up but in a flash something bore down on him. Confused, he had barely time to process that it was Sherlock who was sitting astride of him, when their lips collided.

Forcefully, Sherlock pressed his mouth on John's, but the brutality of its onslaught couldn't hide the incredible softness of the lips. Despite all they'd done so far, he had never felt so incredibly close to Sherlock and involuntarily, a hand reached for his neck to pull a little.

Just a moment longer, John told himself, just a bit more room to move along those lips. Feel their volume, their texture, it didn't matter what, just to remember it.

And Sherlock willingly followed John's lead. Drew back a fraction, let his bottom lip be explored by gentle nips and mimicked the action. Just once, John convinced himself, did he want to snake along that sinfully curved Cupid's bow with the tip of his tongue. Hear the surprised gasp before Sherlock's tongue tentatively sought contact, too.

And suddenly everything was too far away. John's hands clung to Sherlock's body, pulling it nearer, but it wasn't enough. He needed to feel more, become one with that mouth, and then it was John who insistently pressed their lips together, his tongue demanding entrance.

Pushing forward, he didn't meet any resistance, the cautious tongue letting him examine the cavern of his mouth and test his teeth. Sherlock seemed to be reluctant for a reason, holding back, but John felt hands travelling around his back and very slowly, Sherlock joined the duel with John's tongue.

More and more he not only let himself be chased, but challenged John, playfully leading the way and drawing back, intertwining their tongues and dancing along John's lips.

Ignoring the burning need to breathe, Sherlock rushed forward and John melted into the embrace, revelling in the body heat that seemed to be everywhere. When he was suddenly exposed to the room temperature again, it came almost as a shock.

"Sherlock, what…?" John began to ask but those black eyes and the face that was no more than a shadow remained as closed off as always. Only Sherlock's tense position showed the distress, but before John could reach out, he was gone.

Jumping up and almost running out of the living room, Sherlock confirmed John's impression. He had appeared alarmed, almost scared, but John had no idea why. Remaining on the floor and feeling his racing heart slow down, he tried to make sense of what had happened.

It had been a strange kiss. A little clumsy, but certainly eager and very curious. For someone who could look back on such string of experiences, Sherlock had maintained quite the enthusiasm, John mused, but the moment he considered it, his blood ran cold.

Sherlock would have told him. He had told him everything about that time in his life and so there was just one possibility left.

It had been his first kiss.


	13. Second Sunday

John stood in the kitchen and chewed on a piece of toast without really tasting it. It was still too calm in the flat, as calm as it had been since the day before. Sherlock had left the house around noon, making sure that he didn't cross paths with John, only the sound of the closing front door had indicated his departure. Since then, there had been silence.

Debating whether or not he should look for him, the subtle worry that had stayed with him all night got the better of John and cautiously he peeked into Sherlock's room. There he was, doing the one thing that upset John even more than knowing he was out roaming London's seedy underworld alone: sleeping soundly.

At least he's here, John thought as he closed the door. He lit the fire and settled down to read, bare feet on the rug becoming routine, now. Briefly he let the flood of images produced by the feeling of the wool rush through his mind, and then opened the newspaper. He could wait.

Two hours later there was still no Sherlock though, and John resorted to a new strategy. Of course Sherlock barely ate, but he liked to watch others cook and so John pottered around in the kitchen, hoping to coax him out of his room. All the same, no amount of clashing nor the permeating smell of chicken tikka led to one of his sudden appearances and in the end, John put most of the curry in the freezer.

Tiptoeing to Sherlock's room and sneaking another peek inside revealed why exactly he hadn't shown up: he was gone. John didn't know how he had done it, but he reckoned that the materialisation skill he dreaded so much worked both ways.  _Then it's waiting again_ , he sighed, but he doubted that Sherlock would come back during the day. Resigning himself to an afternoon of napping on the couch and watching crap telly, he finally came back to life when it started to get dark outside. This time he'd be prepared.

Night fell and despite his iron-clad plan, John was already on the verge of dropping off in his chair when finally the sound of a key being turned in the lock roused him from his half-sleep. The light of the fire would immediately tell Sherlock that someone was in the living room and John hoped this didn't result in yet another disappearing act.

Afraid to scare him away, he focused his attention on the slightly crumpled paper in his lap, but the sound of the door swinging closed and a coat being taken off told him that Sherlock had entered the flat. Judging by the footsteps, he wanted to cross the living room as fast as possible, so John cleared his throat loudly.

"Don't you want to ask me why I'm still up?" he asked, and Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks.

He didn't, his face left no doubt about that, most likely he already knew. Even so, it was probably some reflex of Sherlock's upper-class heritage that took over his response. It couldn't control inflection, though, because the question didn't sound like one.

"So why are you still up?"

"Waiting. For you," John said matter-of-factly.

"And why?"

"Isn't that what we're doing nowadays? Waiting for each other to… communicate?"

"Is it?" Sherlock tried to avoid his surprise from showing but it didn't work.

"Maybe you can listen to me this time," John suggested. "It would be a completely new experience for you. Give it a try."

Grunting disapprovingly, Sherlock took another step in the direction of his room.

"You know why I brought the rug?" John asked quickly and Sherlock stopped.

"What has the rug got to do with anything?"

"You don't know?" John mocked. "I thought that you'd seen through me right from the start. Well, then let me explain the test set up: I wanted to confront you with something so ridiculous that all you could do was let down that impenetrable mask of yours. At that time I didn't know, but it was absolutely essential to find out more about you."

"It worked, didn't it?" Sherlock said gruffly but he made no further advancements towards his room.

Seizing his chance, John stood up and approached him cautiously. It felt a bit like advancing on a deer – one wrong movement and it got wind of the danger.

"Yes, better than I expected," he said and couldn't suppress a grin. "That woven piece of wool tickled some fascinating reactions out of you."

"I hope you had fun." But before Sherlock could move again, John grabbed his shirt.

"Oh yes, I did. The problem was that you distracted me to such a degree that I didn't realise the most important thing."

Frowning, Sherlock fixed him with his gaze, but John gave him a smile in return.

"I should've paid more attention to myself. So I'm sorry for being a bit slow in the uptake; thank you for leading me out of that misery, by the way."

"You must be mistaken, I didn't do anything." Sherlock was now trying to get away with more force but John held on to his shirt with all his might.

"Yes, you did."

Not letting go of the shirt but easing the grip, John stepped forward and obstructed Sherlock's escape route. Withstanding the withering glare, he reached out for his haphazard curls, running his fingers through them the way he'd wanted to so many times before, and they felt just like he had imagined them. Smooth but also a bit stubborn – a combination typically Sherlock.

"Because that kiss told me so much about all the things that had gone unnoticed before."

Gently, he caressed along Sherlock's temple and then took a path down his cheek, but it seemed as if mentioning the kiss had triggered the same reaction in Sherlock as the day before. Tense, his face closed off, he obviously fought the urge to flee but in the end he just inhaled and looked away.

"I don't do… relationships. You know that."

Relinquishing his hold on the shirt, John took Sherlock's face in both hands and forced him to look him in the eye.

"Don't worry, you'll learn. If you can get used to fibres on your object slides, I'm absolutely convinced that you can adapt to this."

The glowering wasn't really convincing anymore and John risked a grin.

"I'll show you, if necessary."

" _You_ show  _me_?" Sherlock challenged him, ignoring John's hands that were slowly snaking around his neck.

"Exactly," John said. "And as a good boyfriend – "

Both winced at the word and only with great difficulty could John get back on track. "Erm, well, you could first of all continue where you left off yesterday, how about that?"

Should he really wait until Sherlock made up his mind? Or should he use his leverage and pull him down a little? The fact that Sherlock yielded to the slight pressure of the hands on his neck almost instantly – could that mean he'd welcome John's lips for a tentative kiss?

It obviously didn't, John thought, because the moment their mouths touched, the time for anything tentative seemed to be officially over. With complete abandon, Sherlock entered the fray and John could barely stay upright.

Only peripherally he realised that his shirt was opened to be discarded somewhere. The brief interruption of the kiss by his T-shirt being pulled off gave him a clue towards the disappearance of another article of his clothing, but who needed clothes when they were replaced by hands which were almost everywhere, rendering higher brain functions useless?

"You're learning quickly." John gasped and fumbled with Sherlock's buttons.

"What did you expect? I am a genius, after all." Gone were John's trousers and the boxers followed suit, and Sherlock manoeuvred him backwards in the direction of the fire, getting rid of the rest of his own clothing on the way.

John was pulled down on the rug, but the moment he landed on Sherlock, the world was spinning and then wool tickled his back. Trapped under Sherlock's sinewy body, immobilised by strong hands on his arms, John made some attempts to slow the pace but relentlessly, Sherlock outdid them all. With teeth and tongue and the far from unintentional frotting of their erections, Sherlock worked him up in record speed, but when his mouth gave a final bite and shortly after engulfed the tip of his cock, John's hands automatically threaded through Sherlock's hair and pulled fiercely.

"What?" The voice sounded slightly miffed.

"It's going to be over too quickly like that," John gasped and felt around under the armchair. When he found the condom and the lube, he presented them to Sherlock who just shook his head.

"We don't have to."

"Yes we do," John answered and demonstratively unscrewed the tube. "I want to give you something back for what I got yesterday."

He was sure that Sherlock had understood, as intently as he gazed at him now, but the next look wasn't that reassuring any more. For a second Sherlock let it show, the predator that once had twisted lovers around its finger at will, but he reined it in and instead a gentle push turned John to the side.

Briefly wondering why his leg was bent now and what Sherlock was doing behind his back, John couldn't even process the fact that he should be embarrassed as exposed as he lay there, when a slick finger already breached his sphincter and immediately dove for his prostate.

"Fuck, Sherlock, you're…"

"Is that a surprise?" he asked smugly.

Of course not, John thought, he really knew what he was doing. Before that notion could cause any damage, though, the finger found its target again and showed John why his patients needed an iron will during their prostate exams. All that reached his brain now were the electric sparks the gentle massage of that nub produced, making the addition of a second finger a runner-up in the cause of his undoing.

Likewise, little did he care when a third digit started stretching him, as it coincided with Sherlock reaching around to pump his cock. Helplessly John alternated between searching more friction in the hand and pushing against the fingers to make sure they reached their aim, when a sharp bite at his neck startled him.

"Get on your knees, it's easier that way," Sherlock growled and just like before, he didn't waste any time. John had barely heard the foil being ripped open when he felt the blunt head of Sherlock's cock pressing against his entrance.

Inch by agonising inch he eased his way inside and John tried his best to relax. Going by the way Sherlock's fingers dug in his hips, he wasn't the only one who had problems controlling his body, and when Sherlock's shaft was completely buried inside him both men seemed to need a moment's pause.

It was strange and exhilarating at the same time, feeling so utterly… full, but the moment John shifted a little to get a better idea of the length he now accommodated, he involuntarily set off something primal in Sherlock.

 _Damn, he really knows what he's doing_ , John conceded, because after some shallow penetrations, Sherlock directly went for the spot that would make his nerve endings combust, consuming him with a vengeance until he was reduced to a quivering mess on the rug. Grabbing hands added a hint of fingernails, going deeper shove by shove, and the last functioning corner of John's mind braced him for the unlikely event that not just himself, but Sherlock too, were losing control.

Clenching his teeth, he felt the exact moment that Sherlock's authority over his passions slipped and the onslaught began, but he took the deep, hard strokes as good as he could, ignoring the burning in his arse and the strain in his shoulders. All of that happened in a flash and it vanished even faster, with Sherlock keeping the vehemence of his desires in check as quickly as he had given in to them.

"I'm sorry," he whispered breathlessly and reached around to rub John's cock. "Now just let go."

That his body readily surrendered at Sherlock's command before his mind had even recorded it was a peculiar feeling, but way past any control over his jerking hips, John gave in to the coordinated attack of Sherlock's hand and cock. Whatever it was, he would never hold back again if being with Sherlock meant such sensations, if it made him burst into flames like this, melt down his brain and then let the rest explode in bliss…

The tremors of his orgasm almost made John collapse but despite his trembling arms, he withstood the increasing rhythm of Sherlock's strokes because he would soon follow him, feel the same connection and become part of that new universe of pleasure.

As reluctantly as Sherlock then pulled out, John was sure that he had really felt it, and just like him, Sherlock didn't want to let go nor could bear to lose contact. It would nevertheless be reassuring to get some more proof, John thought, although that didn't mean that Sherlock's embrace and the fact that he was  _snuggling_ up against him didn't alarm John at first. Yet there was more than enough time to get used to such extraordinary occurrences, he reckoned, and rolled on his back.

Searching for Sherlock's gaze, he found something familiar, though. He knew that look Sherlock was giving him now because he had already wondered about it some days ago when he found the newspaper snippet. A most curious thing indeed, seeing it now on Sherlock's face, John pondered, but calling it trust would only be the first step into deducing it.

 


	14. Second Monday - Epilogue

A vicious stab of pain seared through his shoulder, rendering him breathless for a moment and leaving him so disoriented that he couldn't have said where he was. Lying on his side on something incredibly hard, just cushioned by coarse material that made his body itch all over, John tried to return to his senses. Slowly the pain was receding but when it reached a certain threshold it was instantly replaced by a warmth, a softness, an unbearable pull in his groin, oh God, what was…?

"Sherlock," John groaned, blinking his eyes open. In the faint light of the early morning, the bobbing head at his groin didn't cease its movements. _So good, just a bit more pressure, oh yes, like that_ _…_ but one involuntary jerk of his hips and the glorious feeling of Sherlock's mouth around his cock was immediately eclipsed by a sharp twinge in John's lower back.

"Ow,fuck!" he shouted and Sherlock released him with an indecent slurp.

"Good morning to you too," he leered at John who was overcome by an unstoppable urge to grab that hair and push his cock between those lips again, so soft and firm at the same time, that tongue…

Gritting his teeth, John cautiously rolled on his back, aggravating his erection even more by not only exposing it to the chilly air of the living room but taking away any possibility of its return into the hot cavern of Sherlock's mouth in the near future.

His back was equally unamused and with some difficulty John got up, but when he had put some distance between himself and the flokati, it retaliated by making him scratch every inch of his skin that had come into contact with it before.

"Shit, it feels like an ant colony's taken residence on me," he cursed, throwing Sherlock a desperate glance, but the rather guarded look he received in return made him even more self-conscious. Realising that his naked fidgeting was most likely an exceedingly ridiculous display, John gave up his attempts at peeling off his skin and turned around instead.

"Where're you going?" a quiet voice asked.

"To bed," John said and turned his head to smirk at Sherlock. "Mine or yours, I seriously don't care. As long as it's soft and I don't wake up with wool between my toes or the pattern of the pile tattooed into my shoulder."

The last glimpse he caught of Sherlock told John that he'd lose his head-start quicker than he preferred. Going by the glint in Sherlock's eyes, the predator had awoken again, but when it brought him down on the bouncy paradise of the mattress, John was more than ready to succumb to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything in the story that reads like real English is CrackshotKate's work, my wonderful beta who proofread day and night to help me keep up posting regularly. Hugs and chocolates to you!


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